Aye, L4D and Portal are made by Valve themselves and if the engine can't do something, they develop it in, as we've seen with the enhanced rag doll physics for Left 4 Dead.

This, as they've stated many times, is based on the version used up to Episode 1. Possibly Episode 2 by now if they went over stuff again but I doubt that. So being realistic, it's based on Episode 1, released in 2006, which was a good game, but not known for its visuals these days. So the very latest updates to the engine for Black Mesa are already 6 years out of date.

It's a shame, they're missing the opportunity to get this game to the generation of gamers who want it, who will still forgive the graphics and physics bugs, but each year that goes by, they give up and move on to better games.

It's like Zombie Panic source, we played that last night, awesome mod but the community has really died, one or two decent servers left with a useful amount of people in. There used to be a lot more. A HL2 mod just like Black Mesa.

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I think the mod scene itself will slowly die out over the coming years. Certainly in terms of conversion mods (as opposed to say promod for COD). The amount of time needed to craft the high quality models and textures, code the complex AI, etc. that modern games demand is just going to become stupid and completely unfeasible for the bedroom mod developer to do in his spare time.

That's why I think there has been more of a surge in 'Indie' games recently. These people are now just going about developing and releasing their stuff as a game in it's own right so they can make money from it and justify the time commitments in a way that a mod couldn't do.

BM:S for example - they'll have to release it free because of what it is, but if they'd pull all that time and and effort into their own game, they may have actually made some money out of it at the end. I think that's the direction more and more developers are taking now.

This, as they've stated many times, is based on the version used up to Episode 1. Possibly Episode 2 by now if they went over stuff again but I doubt that. So being realistic, it's based on Episode 1, released in 2006, which was a good game, but not known for its visuals these days. So the very latest updates to the engine for Black Mesa are already 6 years out of date.

According to their FAQ they're using the EP2 version of Source, so the 2007 SDK. It then says that they may port that to the 2010 version of Source but doesn't say whether they have or not.

Quote:

Which version of Source will be used in the Mod?

Currently the Orange Box version (Source SDK 2007, used in Half-Life 2: Episode Two) [1]. It is planned to port Black Mesa to the Source 2009/10 (the latest version of the engine) [2], except if Valve delays for too long the release of the Source 2010 SDK [3]. The 2009 SDK is currently not being used because of a lack of custom shader support, among other reasons [4].

Even if it's the EP2 version of Source, that's still pretty nice looking, especially as most people will be comparing it to the old original version of Half Life anyway.
Some of the screenshots look really good, and as I loved the original Half life I'd like to play BM-Source, but the delays have just meant I don't really care about following it's progress anymore.

From the stats page it still seems like they're working on it, but I really think they need to get it out this year because even an updated Source version of HL1 will still be getting too old in 2013 to have a real impact, especially if HL3 appears first using a brand new engine or something.